


Midnight

by arcadetozier



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: How Do I Tag, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Not Beta Read, Reddie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-23 05:56:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17677709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcadetozier/pseuds/arcadetozier
Summary: Richie has a bad night and goes to the only place he considers home.





	Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this two years ago and I have no idea to write so I just decided to give in and post it to see what people thought. I honestly don't know what I was thinking when i wrote this. So cringe worthy. Literally every single reddie trope is in this short drabble so there you go. Feedback is appreciated, thank you for reading my trash haha. I barely paid attention to the grammar don't @ me

Eddie stirred in his bed and slowly came out of the haze of blissful sleep when he felt a cool draft from what he assumed to be his window. He slowly rubbed the sleep from his eyes and became alert when he felt the unoccupied side of his bed dip slightly. He looked over his shoulder from where he was facing to see his best friend, Richie, with faint ghost of tear tracks on his flush, rose tinted cheeks. 

"Hey Eds, miss this beautiful face?" Richie said smoothly, trying to make himself in control of the situation. 

"Hey Rich" Eddie honestly didn't know what to say. Sure this isn't the first time Richie had come over unexpectedly and uninvited. Richie was always welcome here to Eddie, his mother on the other hand would go ballistic. She had never take the time to understand Richie. The person behind the awful crude jokes and coke bottle glasses. Underneath there was a whole unexplored part to the teen. He hid his feelings there, behind his whole facade that was his personality. Richie was the comic relief of the group and he would always be know for that. 

Tonight felt different for some reason, Eddie felt as if Richie was hiding behind something. Not letting his true self show through. Richie never hid from the other boy, he knew he didn't have to. He didn't have to worry about crying in front of him because he knew he wouldn't be judged in any way. Richie was hiding, the reason unknown to Eddie. He tried to push it aside but there it remained, burning in the back of his skull.

A few minutes had passed as a comfortable silence had settled over the two and Eddie finally spoke up; letting the curiosity take control. 

"Is it your parents again?" Eddie asked softly, turning his body slightly now flush up against the taller of the two. His face tinged a rosy pink color at how close the two boys had gotten. Eddie hoped that Richie wasn't able to see it from the glimmer of light from the street pouring through his sheer white curtains. He could see the other boy’s bloodshot eyes and peeling chapped lips. He ran his delicate fingers through the thick chocolate curls that sat atop Richie's head rubbing circles on his scalp soothingly as he waited for an answer. 

"You know it, spaghetti man. Now close your eyes, it's late." he said in a tired, raspy voice closing his own eyes and reaching over to sling his arm loosely around Eddie's middle. Eddie’s face became so hot you could probably feel the heat radiating off of his skin. Eddie relaxed trying not to seem tense, not ever wanting Richie to move away from him. His head rested on Richie's shoulder and looked at him with the longing that a child would have if the string from their balloon was cut, and it floated up higher and higher and was never to be seen again. 

Eddie tried, he tried so hard to close his eyes and fall asleep like Richie told him, but he just couldn't. He couldn't stop staring at his best friend’s prominent facial features. His intricate nose and his flushed cheeks dusted with freckles were so distracting how could anyone be expected to look away? Eddie knew he wasn’t supposed to be staring at Richie, staring at him like Ben does with Beverly, and Bill with Stan. Eddie tried to suppress his feelings, he tried so hard to ignore them like they weren’t there but he couldn’t. Everyone, Eddie included, accepted Bill and Stan for who they are but Eddie couldn't be that, he simply couldn’t. His mother would go crazy if she had ever found out. She would medicate the poor boy even more than he already is, trying to cure an illness that doesn't exist, much like his ‘asthma’. 

The feeling burned under his skin. The feeling was an irritating itch that he could never scratch. He felt like he was dirty. Dirty. Dirty. Dirty. 

He was the one blemish that not even he could cleanse. He would never be clean and he knew that. Eddie also knew that it wasn’t right laying with Richie in his bed, it’s not right for him to hold his hand, or Stan’s, or Bill’s, or Mike’s hand (Ben isn’t much of a hand holder unless it Beverly,he would do anything for her). It wasn't right for him to do that because he was infected. He was wrong is so many ways, but he couldn't help himself. He has always felt an outlying loyalty and devotion for Richie than any of the other losers. He loved them all that's for sure, but not like Richie, that feeling was special. He longed for the touch and affection from the older of the two. He craved his acceptance and his approval and his love. 

He was getting ahead of himself and he knew it. ‘We're just laying down. That’s it, there’s nothing wrong with that right. Right?’ He had laid with Beverly before but that was different he-

 

“I can hear you thinking from here Eds, what's got you troubled sugar?” Richie spoke up with a soft, tired chuckle. 

“N-nothing Richie, g-go to sleep.” Eddie said sounding a lot like their own Stuttering Bill. He mentally scolded himself knowing that now, Richie was never going to leave him be, to figuratively die in peace. He bit down on his apparently quivering lip, to try and keep tears in that he didn't even know he was holding back. 

He felt selfish. Here Richie was distraught about an obvious real world problem that can be touched in the material plane, and then there Eddie was fighting something that can't be touched, or even seen. Eddie was dealing with stuff that even he didn't understand. How was he expected to bring Richie into his mess. 

Eddie didn't realize it, but he was in pain too. Loads of thick and greasy pain that you feel when you have the flu, when your brain feels like it's filled with cotton. How your stomach feels so hungry it could eat anything, but when it’s given something it rejects it immediately. Eddie’s pain was something that could only be described with feelings, not with words. Words couldn't even begin to describe the misery he was in. He was a lost cause at this point, or that's what Eddie had coaxed himself to believe.

Richie pulled Eddie’s comforter over the two of them and snaked his left arm down and held Eddies right hand in his own squeezing it. 

“Eds, you know that you can tell me anything, I won't bite too hard,” Richie smiled sloppily and pulled their hands up to his lips and put a soft kiss onto the tender flesh of Eddie’s hand which sent a shiver of satisfaction down his spine. Eddie was still facing the internal battle with himself on what to say. Richie’s lighthearted and airy humor was pushed aside from his voice and instead, was replaced with an emotion that Eddie couldn't quite place, he'd never heard it from anybody other than from Richie.


End file.
